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Leader (1850-1860), 28th November 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1147, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      your compliments , Leicester will beat you at that . But now , in sober earnest , my boy , you have shown us the bottom of your purse . " "My purse is empty if it contains not what my lord desires , but indeed it is filled-with the wishes of my lord /' "Why , then , " said Baddeley , with a twinkling eye , " I should like——" " We have seen beauty , but it was mute , " interrupted Lawford ; " we Lave heard beauty , but it wa 3 unseen . " " I should like - " reiterated Baddeley . * ' You are going .. to ask me , " rebutted Leicester , " for the impossible . " ¦ " He is the evil genius of this bower / ' whisperrd I to Lawford . ¦ " Iiumlu" ! " jcried Baddeley . " However , if a man anustn ' t , after all , ^ peak his mmd in sober seriousness , one of my wishes was told you before you allowed me to make an ass of myself ; for if you are better at some things , I can beat you at billiards !" The fellow could never rise above the coffee-house .

      Leicester looked at us for permission , and rose to lead , the way . In my own mind I had treated the idea of a billiard-room in that ' box' as an absurdity , but now he was evidently going to let us have ' the impossible . ' The room from which we were descending was indeed of a good size ; but it was , I felt sure , at the top of the low square building , and was over both the other rooms . I have observed that siza is as much disguised by extreme squareness ^ as it is by variety and pointedness of form ; and Leicester ' s darksquare box is really as much larger than it looks as Woodsprlng Priory itself ; but still it is a samll , low building . I thought the HUiard-room might

      be over some of the offices ; but he led us into one of the dimly-lighted arches of the saloon , down a winding stair longer than the one we bad ascended , and through a long passage as silent as the stairs , which opened into a splendid saloon , a long oblong , with -walla of fine white stucco pointed with flowers . la the midst , a billiard-table of plain mahogany and green ; but at the side of the saloon were benches with crimson velvet cushions and ivory arms and legs , and velvet cushions for the feet . At the further end of the hall appeared to be chess-tables and other tables , but we did not "o there . ¦ ¦ ' .. - ' ¦ ¦¦ ' . ¦ ¦ - ¦¦ ¦'"¦ . * ' °

      Leicester asked us if we would play ; but Lawford and I preferred to look on , and as we took our seats on one of the benches , the black slave brought us pipes and coflee . I shall not describe the play . By his success , Baddelev seemed to be right when he boasted that he / was the better man on that field ; but I am sure that Leicester acted the generous host by playing carelessly . One incident alone proved this . Baddeley had been exulting in a sort of joting pity as he added up the good round suins that 3 xq won , for they played high ; the game was almost certainly his , and as the balls fell into position , lie cried , " There ' s a table for you ! cannon and pocket ! " Now I should tell you how the balls were placed . Leicester ¦

      w as in baulk , not very far from ; the left-hand pocket . The red ball was about as far from the middle pocket on the right hand ; and Baddeley's towards the left again , further down the table . Leicester took a little more pains than before , stooped a little and measured his angles , and then tis ball parted like a bullet from his cue : the red ball disappeared into the righthand middle pocket , Baddeley ' s into the left bottom pocket , and rehounding against the cushion at the end , Leicester ' s ball disappeared in the righthand pocket in baulk . It was not only that it was done , but in order to appreciate the couji , you should have seen the mathematical precision . *' Ah ! " cried Baddeley , " a few more such strokes and you would recover . a bit . ' ?

      " ¦ It is dull work for bystanders , " cried Leicester , as the game closed . " Not at all , " answered Lawford , though my attention to the game , ^ ind Baddeley ' s business-like devotion to it , left the statesman only to an interrupted tete-a-tete—" not at all , —only we must not forget ' time . " It was indeed long past midnight , so cunningly had our host conjured away time . " xour carriage only waits your pleasure , " he said ; and he led us up another stair , emerging by a door in the wall into the room we had first entered , now enriched with wines , biscuits , jellies , sandwiches , and other light portable bonnes bouches . " To whet your appetita for the journey , " he said .

      Not long after , Lawford and I passed through the little door in the ivy-clothed garden wall into the dark , and rolled back towards London . X have more to tell , but I must , wait till my next . Meanwhile , I may hear more . Polwhele , I have just heard , is better , but desperately anxious for the mail . Yours , ever affectionately , J . A . W .

      Untitled Article

      OPERA BUFFA . Some of our contemporaries appear to deal very scanty justice to the Neapolitan company at the St . James ' s . One might almost suppose that there was a conspiracy of silence , or of faint praise , to extinguish the Opera Buffii . Surely if there be a flourishing English Opera at one cud of the town , we can find room for a few harmless Italians at the other . For our own part , we arc for absolute free trade in music as in all other arts , and wherever arc to be found the best singers , be they British or Italian , thither do we go . Signor Honzani's enterprise has had to contend not only with the grudging notice of the press , but with the disastrous inclemency of a London November ; making singers hoarse , and keeping half ' the world' at home . How a tenor or mezzo-soprano , accustomed to the climute of Naples , can even breathe in London at this seasou , wo find it difficult to conceive ; yet the pleasant little company at the St . James ' s have boon singing night after night with scarce ^ ' an ' indisposition' to speak of . The production of liicci ' a Birraio di Pi-nston ought to be a Int . The music is unceasingly gay , sparkling , and tuneful ; flowing ever like a clear , bright , shallow

      stream ; tlie instrumentation is smart and crisp ; the concerted pieces are clever and vivacious , the songs full of pleasant little turns , and pretty passages . Wo dare say Ricci is imperfectly original . But he picks hia flowers from the common bouquet of all composers . In any case lie is sunny , and southern , and warm with light and colour and careless enjoyment : he is a relief to a London November out of doors . The liirruio di Preaton is very creditably played and sung ; the orchestra and cliorus arc fairly elh ' eieiit ; the prineipn . singers ! have good voices , and know how to use them . Siguor Kaitaki . li as JJanivt Robinson , Signor Colomdo as Tohtj , and Signor Castim-li as Lard Afmyruiv , contribute very successfully to the general vocal and dramatic olRjut ; and Signor Gioiicistti is a charming teno-rtno , with i \ sweet voice and a pure method . Signora Dotxini is an acquisition to the company , combining the piquancy of the French school with the flowing fulness of the Italian , although her vocalization is apparently limited in capacity . SSignoru Tamiujuixi has perhaps more voice , with less method and experience ; but she sings with spirit , and pleasingly . The libretto of the Brewer of Trenton is even inoro than usually absurd , but it is ingeniously absurd ; and from beginning to end the audience is amused . Hie performance lias given great satisfaction , and it deserves tu draw the Town to the St . Ja . bii £ s ' h .

      Untitled Article

      Mil . ALBERT SMITH AT HOME . Mr . Albeut Smith has returned to his Cliiilet in Piccadilly in greater force and higher spirits than ever , and for the next ton months wo may hope that lie will lie at liomc seven times a week to that vast circle of friends whoso circumference is ' all the world . ' More than half of his present entertainment is entirely new , And the rest appears to be considerably rewritten , or ' touched up" hero and ¦ there with new and happy illustrations . The ' Lecture , ' as it ia officially entitled ( would that all lectures were half as lively !) , is now preceded by a pictorial prologue , in other words , a panorama of the Rhino and the Ncclcar , from Cologne to Heidelberg , effectively painted by Mr . 1 ' . Phillips , and accompanied by music in harmony with the scenes as they unrol in bright succession . The front of the Chalet then fulls for u moment , and presently , to an audience pleasantly attuned to sec and hear what is coming , appears the Lecturer himself , prepared to receive the hearty welcome due to an old friend and a 'jolly good fellow . ' Portly as the Great Briton , whoso prejudices he flutters , and vivacious as the Mosau , whose weaknesses he ridicules ( . and whose beard he generously adopts ) , Mr . Albkut Smith opens firo-withau introduction composed of double-shotted antithetical sentences , a long way after the manner of liuron Macaulay ; mid it is amusing to observe , that like an inexperienced or amateur

      gunner Mr . Albert . Smith visibly trembles at the discharge , and betrays an evident sense of relief when he breaks off in to the old style of familiar fun . His receipt , a & bpiriat , for making a Diligence , is in his best sit vie , and his electric summary of the < rail way routes of past lectures , ' Hashes with sparks of humour nS n ! ti ? % ° obser y atlon inexhaustibly suggestive and incredibly minute 1 he Bottle of Champagne . ( ac four o ' clock in the mowing at Epernav is a mirX of vivid reality . The description of a foreign hotel % Bte ^^' i " , Sd ^ l British tourist , personified T > y the typical Mr . ZW « , is a kindly exaggeration of a . well-known-figure . A little passing chat about Basle includes a strikin g anecdote of Holbein s youth . From Zurich , where Mr . Albert Smith alwavl a pitiless iconoclast , is careful to tell us that the maidens are not fair We-nass on to . the Hotel on the ttighi . Here the Lecturer ' s astonishing versatility - comes into play . He sings ' Le Moulin du Village' to a tin fiddle , and a national air of some sort or other to a hurdy-gurdy—' Voices of the night , " ' -to which even the beven Sleepers could not have been deaf . Here , too . we meet-with the undecided Mr . Parker once more—a weak brotherve must confessandeven at

      , , , second hand , a bore ; but we encounter a novelty in the shape of a specimen of ' Female Girldom , ' irreverently entitled ' The Prancer , ' from the emphatic nature of her mien and movements . The duet for the cornet-a-piston and piano between Thel ' raueer and Mr . Parker is irresistible . When the ' drop' goes up again w-e are on the Lake of Lucerne , with Teil ' s Chapel to our left . We may be sure that Mr . Albert Smith—a sort of comic Niebithr as he is—smashes the popular legend of William T * xl , and assures us it is all nonsense : the rnore ' s th e pity . From the lake we pass on to the Jung Frau , and the Bernese Oberland , and thence to the Valais , and by Martigny over the Great St . Bernard to Geneva , concluding with a capital Patter song illustrative of the enjoyments of British tourists— ' Brown on his travels . ' The diorama of the Ascent of Mont Blanc forms the entr ' acte , and on the reappearance of the Lecturer we descend with him by the valley of Aosta into Italy , from Turin to Genoa , where \ ve take the boat of the Menageries Imperiales for Naples . On board the

      steamer a diverting incident , - which "we are told to take fox fact is related ; and , not content with a speaking portrait of a French cavalry officer , Mr . Albert Smitii invents a ' patriot' on a mission of national' regeneration , ' for the sole purpose of sneering at exiles . Perhaps it is more cruel than comic to sneer at meu whose chief fault is that they are * neither fat nor . prosperous , nor clothe ! in fine linen , nor content with national degradation . Strangers will say that Mr . Albert Smith would have sneered at Dante , as he would sneer at Manin or Poerio ! But the truth is , that those who know him best kno w well that the kindest of social satirists , in his restless anxiety to be merry , occasionally does injustice to his own better feelings . Naples , ' with its beauty its squalor , its noise , and its perpetual masquerade , is a life-like picture , and the Lecturer appears to be a little softened by the delicious climate . At Pompeii ( where he encounters gushing Baby Simmons , ' now converted into the ' lady' of the Rev . Septimus Bland y— a mild , classical enthusiast ) Mr . Albeut Smith yields a moment to the ' religion of the place , ' and pays a graceful and grateful tribute to the author of the last I » ays of Pompeii , whose genius has filled those unburied Avails with life and love . But here , again , he will not . allow himself to confess that admonitus locorum , - \ vlnch he evidently feels ; and lie takes refuge from emotion in a macaronic song , a sort of olla podrida from the Eton Latin grammar , embodying -with infinite humour in the adaptation , and , what is more singular , with a sort of Horatian instinct , the Epicurean sentiment of the old Pagan , dwellers on . the shore of that lovelybay . This song alone is worth a . visit to the Egyptian Hall . The visits to Paestuin and to Capri are illustrated , by--Mr . William Beverley ' s charming pictures ; the Jilue Grotto is perhaps a little theatrical in effect , but it is effective : the Enmtion of Vesuvius , with which the lecture concludes , is , we must say , an unmitigated . rechauffe of JMascmieUo . Mr . Albert Smith Very wisely shuns politics , and he is comfortably insensible to tlio fact that he is surrounded at Naples by dungeons in which the best and noblest in the kind are slowly tortured to death . Why , then , must he g-o out of his way to sneer at patriots and exiles ? But let us end as we began , with a word of welcome . -The ' Galignani' song lias lost nothing of its freshness and a , propos , and we may add that the comfort of the audience is perfectly cared for , and that whoever desires to pass the plcasantest of evenings in the best ot company , will pay a visit to Mr . Albert Smith's hospitable Chalet at the Egyptians : Hall .

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      Untitled Article

      No . 401 , November 28 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 1147

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 28, 1857, page 1147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2219/page/19/